#i put 1.5 years of work into something that means a lot to me

[dragons-and-yellow-roses]

.

[roseband]

guys guys guys guys.... GUYS 

nys re-enrolled all essential plan ppl until nov 2023 im SO HAPPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[husbandhoshi]

🦋anon here !!! thoughts on your first time riding seokmin? i feel like it’d be half-encouragement from him and half-him losing it over how amazing you feel on top of him ✨

wc: 5.6k

notes: bff2l seokmin x f!reader, established relationship, big dick!seokmin, fingering, piv sex, protected sex, lots of sex and lots of fluff

[part 1] [part 1.5]

"I knew it!"

Soonyoung whacks the table and stands up, eyes glittering as the whole restaurant (and then some) turns to look your way.

"You guys literally wouldn't stop making googly eyes at each other when we all went out last week. And no one believed me!"

"Can you keep it down," you say, desperately trying (and failing) to suppress the bloom of laughter in your chest. "This isn't an episode of Maury."

"Except he is the father, right? Because you call him daddy?" Soonyoung winks devilishly, and Seokmin is all smiles as per usual, except you don't miss how he glances over at you to gauge your reaction first.

"Please shut up before I reveal your laundry list of even more embarrassing...preferences. To put it politely," you retort.

"So I'm right is what you're saying."

And as if he was in a cartoon, Seokmin's eyes widen so big, you think they might just fall out of their sockets.

We'll unpack that later, you tell yourself. You've got enough to handle now—never did you think you'd be so ridiculously happy to reveal to Soonyoung, of all people, the inner workings of your intimate life.

But you are, you're more than happy because you're dating your best friend, your better half, the glowing boy sitting next to you. And even just thinking about what he had said, that he's liked you for years now, sends an unreasonable amount of serotonin to your brain and all the butterflies one could handle everywhere else.

Instead of telling Soonyoung off, you decide to bypass the daddy topic altogether and let your very pointed eye roll do all the talking.

"Fine, fine," he relents, pulling out his phone with a triumphant grin. "Didn't see you as the daddy type anyway."

"What's that supposed to mean?" you protest. "Please don't tell me you're texting that Maury joke to the group chat."

You notice Seokmin likes squeezing your hand when he laughs. It's yet another thing you're learning about him; it gives you the craziest head rush knowing that even though you thought you knew everything there was to know about your best friend, dating him only drew you in deeper, taught you new things everyday. Like how he only uses the yellow heart emoji for you, or the slow, romantic move of his lips when you kiss in the morning and the rough of his hands up your shirt.

"No, I'm telling Cheol he owes me twenty bucks." He pauses. "But I should, huh?"

--

It's in the parking lot of Seokmin's apartment complex, with his hand on your thigh, when he asks, "Daddy, huh?"

You know he's mostly joking—he still blushes when he sees you in a bra—but for some reason, the whole thing makes your head spin.

"Not really, but I didn't think it was your thing either." The weight of the moment sinks in, the heat of his hand, the hem of your skirt pushed up your legs. "Is it?"

"To be honest," he starts, pausing to look at you, all flushed and pretty—god, he's cute. "It's kinda embarrassing, but—," Seokmin buffers momentarily. "I'm into whatever you're into. I'll do anything."

The instant the words leave his mouth, you're on him.

It's all hands, your sweaty palms over the center console to lean in and kiss him, the desperate fumble of the seatbelt buckle. Hands that you've known your whole life but are something new, reborn in this moment.

"Fuck, fuck," you breathe, and you grab his hand to shove under your skirt and press right against your panties, already warm with arousal. "See how wet I am? Just from your hand on my leg?" Your lips meet his again, tongue and teeth and the moan in the back of his throat as he starts to rub you through your underwear. "I should be the one embarrassed."

His thumb presses against your clit, just enough to make you shudder.

"No, never." He leans in to kiss you but opts to press his forehead against yours instead, and the hand under your skirt stills so you can actually focus on what he's saying. "Can I say this? I want you so bad."

"Then what are we waiting for!"

And you almost close your own damn hand in the car door with excitement.

You wish you could say you acted with more poise on the way to his room (still empty—thank god Soonyoung has a social life), but all you can say is that you pray security never watches the elevator footage.

When you're in front of his apartment door, he drops his keys, and in your shared horny stupor, you both fall to your knees to pick it up, laughing between kisses as you sort through the seemingly endless keyring for the right one.

As soon as the door is closed behind you, Seokmin's leaning you against it, your bottom lip between his teeth in another kiss.

"Are we gonna fuck," you breathe, and your hands search for the hem of his tee to pull it off. "Please tell me we're gonna fuck."

You meet his eyes, tar black with want, then remember your composure.

"Only if you wanna, though. Swear," you add.

Seokmin clasps your hands, still wrapped around the cotton of his shirt, to lift them up to his lips and kiss them, like you're in a fairytale.

"Respectfully, there is nothing I want more than to blow your back out." His eyes widen when he realizes his brain filter has faltered yet again, and he self corrects—"I-I mean, I was planning for it to be more romantic, but—"

"Yes. The answer is yes."

You let your eyes meet once again, and it feels like something is truly unlocked in you.

This time the sex means something, these years and years of puppy love, of trying and failing to love other people because it's always been each other. And you want him, all of him, more than anything else.

The race to take each other's clothes off is neither poetic nor graceful, but there's something about the way your lips can't be apart for more than a second, how your blood feels like it sizzles under your skin at every touch, and the youthful, innocent way you both giggle when you almost fall over trying to step out of your panties—it's neither of your first times, but it sure feels that way, in the best way possible.

The plane of the door is cool against your bare back, and you arch into it as Seokmin's teeth find the soft skin of your neck and trail down to your collarbones.

When your hand wraps around his cock, hot and heavy, he whimpers against your skin. Fuck, it's not the first time you've seen his size (not even close), but you feel your little hand barely come around it and it still makes your knees weak.

"G-gotta prep you," Seokmin breathes. You instinctively hike your thigh up, and he gladly pins it against the door with one big hand and uses his free one to run a careful, reverent finger over the heat of your cunt. "Is this ok?" he asks, eyes glittery under his lashes as he kisses the bloom of a new hickey.

"Yeah, fuck, 's more than ok." you say it so easily, but the mere idea of having him finally inside you actually makes your pussy ache from being so turned on. Luckily, he's not about to deprive you. The pads of his fingers are so big, so rough, against your sensitive skin, and you cry out when he presses a careful digit to your clit.

He's not brave enough to say it now, but you can tell he loves how easy, fragile you become even under the simplest of touches. How his favorite person, strong and confident, can be reduced to this. And he reveres, drinks in the sight of you, heavy-lidded and debauched against his front door, desperately holding his forearm as he pushes just a single finger into your heat.

"Oh, god," you pant, trying to anchor yourself to jacking your boyfriend off. It's hard, given how his hand just feels so, so much better than any toy you have in your bedside drawer, but the way you've also got him under your spell is nothing short of intoxicating.

You watch, almost with an academic intensity, as his jaw just falls open when you run your thumb over a vein on the underside of his cock, fucking him with your fist just as he likes.

No, it hasn't been long since you confessed to him—yeah, his dick was also in your hand even then (but you never were much of a planner)—but you had tried to make up for lost time since.

You had, as Soonyoung so horribly liked to put it, gone to third base (never mind that he knew nothing else about baseball and thought there were more than three bases), but nothing further.

There's territory you had never dared to tread, even as best friends, but as you watch him melt into yet another kiss and feel the race of his heartbeat under the broad, tanned plane of his chest, secrets only yours to keep, you realize there's nowhere you'd rather be.

He pushes a second digit into you, and, regrettably, you're already almost over the edge. Who can blame you? Once he learned what you liked, he had no difficulty in spoiling you—you could almost say he was addicted to getting you off, the way he loved you. He curls his fingers deep inside you, right against your g-spot, and a white hot bolt of pleasure races up your spine.

(You remember the first time you came on his hand. He sucked on your clit and spread you open with just two fingers, and you came so hard you cried. He kissed all the tears from your cheeks, and after double, triple, and quadruple checking you were fine, he buried his head in your cunt to make you cry all over again.)

"N-need three," you gasp, tightening your hold on his wrist. You can swear his dick jumps a mile in the grip of your other hand, and you release it so he doesn't cum too quickly. "Gotta, gotta make sure you fit in my tiny cunt, huh?"

Seokmin nods, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically, and gladly obliges, feeling you stretch around his three fingers. Judging by the way he sucks in a deep breath, sounding somewhere between a whine and a wounded noise, you know he's imagining the hug of your pussy around his cock, just how goddamn tight and slutty you'll really be just for him.

God, three fingers barely fit, but as he pushes past the first knuckle, the pressure in your belly coils more tightly than you could ever have imagined.

Helplessly, you watch the muscles on his forearm shift as he continues fucking you open on his hand.

You remember the summer you noticed how strong he had gotten. He was a junior lifeguard, and your days were filled with the endless August sun and his suntanned figure, painted crimson by the sunset with a surfboard on his shoulder.

That first night, the minute he dropped you off at your place, you had snaked a guilty hand down your bikini, playing with your clit and imagining it was him splitting you open against that lifeguard tower.

"God, fuck, how are you so fucking tight?" he murmurs under his breath. Hearing his voice drop like that makes you clench hard, and as the heel of his palm crashes into your clit once again, you cum so hard, your knees really do buckle.

He's got you, pulling you flush to his body with a strong arm around the small of your back as you catch your breath.

"Careful—did too good of a job, huh?" he laughs, sunshine smile making his cheeks glow.

He is so goddamn cute, but being pressed against his bare chest is not helping the situation downstairs, and instead of kissing his nose like the romantic in you wants to, you lean into him so that he can feel how hard your nipples are, how desperate you really are. And then you kiss his nose (impulse control is hard!).

"You did so, so good," you say, trailing slow, wet kisses to his cheek, his jaw, his earlobe. Your hand finds his weeping cock again, and you can hear him swallow hard as you start playing with him again. "I need you, Seok, 'm so ready for you."

"H-how do you want me?" Seokmin asks breathlessly. "I'll do it all, fuck, whatever you want."

"You're lucky I'm feeling nice right now." You kiss his jaw again, and you absolutely delight in how quickly he tips his chin up so you can better access him. You adore that about him, how vulnerable and trusting he is around you. His love is open-hearted, and you never, ever want to take that for granted. "On the bed, preferably. I want our first time to be on a flat surface."

"Door's not flat enough?" he laughs, but he starts walking backwards, arms still wrapped tight around your middle. He lets you guide him all the way to the bedroom, which should have been an easy task if not for Seokmin almost tripping over air every three steps in his excitement. "Could be sexy?" He wiggles his eyebrows, and you're too horny to stop yourself from laughing in the absolutely lovesick way you tend to laugh nowadays.

"Can't ride you standing up, can I?"

And then Seokmin bites his lip to stifle what could possibly be the most embarrassing moan in the world before you push him so the back of his knees hit the edge of the bed.

"Come on, now," you tease. Watching him scramble back to lay against the pillows, monster cock slapping his washboard abs, feels like a borderline crime, but it's so hot in that undeniably Seokmin way. You can't possibly describe it with any other words.

"Hold on," he says, opening one of the bedside drawers. He fumbles around for a beat, the weak lamp not helping much, and procures a shiny foil-wrapped condom. "Got the one that's supposed to make the girl feel good."

"Oh my god." You watch as your stupidly hot boyfriend tears the thing open with his teeth, grinning all the while, and you feel your heart actually swell to an inhumane size. Wonderful, kind Seokmin, who has the biggest goddamn dick you've ever seen and still gets the condom that would make you feel good, just in case.

"If I neigh, will you laugh?" Seokmin asks, completely serious as he rolls the condom onto his dick. It takes you completely by surprise, and he doesn't even need to say anything else for you to laugh, a full body one. He laughs too, and you know he's rambling because that's what he does when he has the jitters, which you somehow have too.

And when the silence settles, it's just you and him and the dew of the lamplight. He admires you as you stand by the bedside, quietly as to not make you feel rushed. There's no reason why either of you should be anything but comfortable (you've seen him with rivers of snot running down his face—on multiple occasions, but the worst was when he didn't get the lead role in the school musical senior year. And you two don't even talk about the time he walked in on you, butt-naked, washing your panties in his bathroom sink when your period took you by surprise. Like a good best friend, he drove to the drugstore to buy you pads. Now there's always a box in his bathroom drawer, like an unsaid kindness).

You straddle him, cunt hot and slick over his abs as you settle onto your thighs, and you feel yet another rush overtake you. Somehow, somewhere inside the pit of your chest, you're a bit nervous.

Even now, when he's sucking the breath out of your lungs in another searing kiss, you feel this overwhelming need to be perfect for him. More than a best friend.

"Sorry, I—," you pause to peck the corner of his smile, feeling the words spin around in your brain like it's a washing machine. "Are we doing this?"

"Do you want to?" His hands run up and down your sides, comfortingly. "We don't have to."

"No, I really, really want to." And it's hard to say it, because you've always been the more confident half, but you do. "I just wanna do it right."

"Baby." The squeeze of your hands again. "You could never do it wrong. Ever."

The earnest way he looks at you makes all of the confidence flood back into your body, and you're suddenly overcome with all the affection your body can handle.

That, and he tenses his abs as he settles deeper onto the bed, and you feel it on your clit, reminding you that you are, in fact, so turned on you might actually die.

Get out of your head and fuck your best friend, you tell yourself, and you wonder why you were so silly for worrying earlier.

"Ready?" Seokmin asks with a gentle tap of the soft flesh at your hips.

"You should be asking yourself that," you laugh, fully recovered and now admiring the mess you've made out of Seokmin. His lips are swollen and glossy, and there's nothing, absolutely nothing, you want to do more than to ruin him.

"That's my girl," he says warmly. "So pretty when you laugh."

"Your girl, huh?" You begin rocking your hips back and forth, letting his dick slide between your pussy lips. "Mmm, I like the sound of that."

You watch his eyes flutter shut as he slowly exhales, finally feeling the relief you're sure he was so desperately craving. "Y-yeah, fuck. I'll call you whatever you want."

"Whatever I want? Oh, you better be careful giving me that kind of power." You grin down at Seokmin, who is furrowing his brow perhaps in the cutest way you've seen from him yet.

You can tell he's trying his best to hold back—his hands rest firm on your hips, and he can very well grind you on his cock himself. You feel the latex slide over the hood of your clit as you sway oh so slowly over him, watching every little muscle in his face as his lip quivers with another broken moan.

"God, you're so hot," he whispers. "Can't believe we're doing this. 'M so lucky."

"Please shut up." You lean down to peck him and are met with the tiniest, softest little kisses all over your lips and your chin because he can't be bothered to aim when the love of his life is about to sit on his dick for the first time. "You're gonna make me like you more."

"That's a good thing, right?"

Deciding to put him out of his misery, you reach behind you to position his dick at your entrance. It's already so, so sensitive from all the foreplay that even just feeling the pressure of it against your skin has you curling your toes in anticipation.

You sink down on him for what feels like a fraction of a millimeter, and already you know he's big big in you. You suck in a deep breath, giving yourself a beat to adjust as your lungs fill and your cunt clenches so hard, other muscles down there feel compromised.

With both of your hands against his chest, hair mussed and cheeks flushed, you look so much more beautiful than Seokmin could ever dream of, but he's too focused on how you're biting your cheek and gasping at how he just stuffs you so, so fucking full.

"A-am I too big? We can, like, stop," he stammers. "Had no idea your pussy's so fucking tiny, holy shit."

Yeah, maybe it's been a while since you've been fucked by a non-silicone dick (hard to sleep with other men when you've wanted only one for god knows how long). But you know the drill, and you bob, albeit a little noncommittally, up and down, and fuck his cockhead in and out of you. The first time's always a stretch, the second time a little less so, and by the third, you're already fuzzy-brained.

"I-I'm serious," Seokmin babbles, obviously not in control of his dick as you feel it pulse inside of you.

"Shhshhshh—" you gently cover his mouth with one hand to prevent any more of his worrying. "Look at what you do to me," you say, voice barely above a whisper, as you splay out your other hand over your stomach. And then you sink down as far as you can on him, slowly, torturously, and you see his eyes widen as the back of your hand swells with how you give way for his cockhead and bulge out with his size.

"Mmph—shit," Seokmin whimpers, still muffled by your hand. "Holy."

He watches as his cockhead disappears over and over again into the heat of your cunt, god, he can hear Soonyoung's voice in his head (it's saying, just the tip, just the tip, in that infuriatingly endearing middle-school cadence), but he had no idea it would look and feel so good.

"You're perfect, so fucking perfect. So good at riding me," he manages, fingernails leaving crescents in your sides with how he's clinging to you.

With every bounce of your hips, you start to fall into a comfortable rhythm. You're sinking deeper and deeper onto him, and although it's not much, you're hell-bent on fucking the shape of his dick into you until he can fit all the way, till he can see you take all of him, feel you flush against him.

"Fuck, no wonder your girlfriends always wanted to stay the night, cock's so fucking good," you sigh, already feeling an orgasm building up in your tummy.

"Jealous?" You pout down at him in reply. "You really shouldn't be."

He experimentally rocks his hips up, meeting you in the middle so you don't have to do all the work, and his cockhead drags against you in a way that rips some strangled, pornstar mewl from your chest and makes your thighs positively shake around him.

"Was thinking about you the whole time," Seokmin finishes, brows knit together as you squeeze so tight around him, his words going right to your cunt as you process what he just said.

You imagine a pretty girl's lips wrapped around Seokmin's cock, all the while he's thinking about you taking him down your throat, cum running down your chin. No wonder when it actually happened last week, he looked at you like you had walked straight out of a dream.

"Every time?"

He nods and rocks up again, and you feel like an organ will explode inside you. Maybe it will, given how you've got that tummy bulge you've only dreamed of in your horniest fantasies.

"S-Seok," you breathe, tears pooling at your lashline as he holds you still so he can fuck the few inches of cock into you that you've taken so far. "A-ahh, fuck, oh, oh my god."

"Feels good? Let me take care of you, angel? Please?"

It feels like a rhetorical question given how he's already started to bounce you up and down like a fleshlight, but you're not coherent enough to even think about the answer pouring out of your mouth, more, m-more, deeper, please, please, god please. You look down as he enters you again, and you see just how, even though you haven't taken him all the way yet, you've creamed his cock so fucking good, it should be on the front page of Pornhub.

It's then that you realize it's not just a want for him to split you open, it's a need.

Partially because it's been the subject of half of your teenage dreams, partially because you realize you are out of practice and your poor legs may just give out.

Seokmin hesitates briefly, likely (validly) concerned he's going to break you if he puts his whole cock in you.

"Remember how you said you wanted to break my back?" you say in your most level, non-fucked out voice. "Like twenty minutes ago."

"Respectfully," he adds. He smiles, but his jaw is clenched with the feeling of your heat around him.

"Well. I need you to make good on that promise." You sink down on him as far as you can go, because if you go any further, you're convinced all the muscles in your thighs will actually liquefy. "N-need your help, baby."

It seems like that's all he needs to hear, because he's hoisting you off his body as gently as he can and onto your back, not forgetting the pillow under your hips (thoughtful as ever).

And it's like this, with your hands laced with his above your head, eyes locked, and lips so close you're breathing the same breaths, that he fucks into you, deep, all the way.

He bottoms out in you, slowly, carefully, and it feels like fireworks go off in your body as the stretch turns to liquid pleasure, the mind-numbing kind you've been craving.

"F-fuck..." you whine, near-drooling already.

"Everything okay so far?"

You squeeze his hands in reply and he squeezes back, like he always does. You know Seokmin said he wished things were more romantic, but you can't imagine this being any more perfect.

Now, pinned under Seokmin's gaze, you feel swallowed whole by years and years of caged up affection.

He's let it leak, the glimmers of just how fucking much he loves you, needs you.

The long, lingering gazes (he was never subtle, and he's more shameless about it now that you've started dating), and you hate to admit it, but he's the first thing you look for in any room. How it's never just one orgasm with him, how he can spend hours with his hand under the blanket, between your thighs as you both ignore yet another movie.

He still pretends flowers he picks one by one at the farmers market are premade bouquets.

And now, Seokmin's holding your hands as he stretches your cunt like a pornstar, and you're in love with him.

When you smile at him, his already slow pace falters, and he buries his head in the space between your neck and your shoulder.

"Sorry," he laughs quietly, pressing a wet kiss to your bare skin. "Get embarrassed sometimes around you. Can you believe it? I still do."

"No reason to. You're doing so good," you reply, a bit strangled because he shifts his hips further up into you so his cockhead's snug against your g-spot. "God, Seok, you're so fucking hot. We've been best friends half my life and I haven't told you that nearly enough."

You can feel his face heat up, but he doesn't relent. "God, I love you." he says, pressing another kiss to your neck, right at your pulse point so you keen right into him. "Can I fuck you? Better than my other girlfriends?"

"Thought you'd never ask."

This time, he fucks you. For real.

His hips crash into the back of your thighs so hard, you move up the mattress, and he abandons the whole hand-holding thing to instead wrap his arms around your torso, pressing your chests flush and connecting your bodies—skin to skin, heart to heart, his forehead against yours.

"Mmmh, god, fuck, so fucking big," you drawl, jaw hanging open as you slur your words. "A-ah, fucking me so good, baby."

Seokmin watches you, crowned by his bedsheets, as you beg for him harder, deeper—seeing you so ready and desperate for him fills him with a possessiveness he's never experienced before.

And this time it's his turn to smile, but he can't smile at you like that. Not when he's fucking you so good, you're ruined for anyone else.

"You like it like this, huh?" he asks. "Like feeling me split your perfect fucking pussy open? Better than your other boyfriends, huh?"

You nod, babbling yes, yes, yes over again. Something about how low and gravelly his voice gets in your ear, how he asks you if he's pleasing you in the most sincere voice as he slams into you hard enough to bruise, is sending you spiraling into a high you don't think your body is ready to handle yet.

"Seok, baby, tell me how good I'm taking you," you whine, toes curling and thighs shaking as they're wrapped around him. Your cunt is squeezing around him so hard, you're surprised he's able to still move. "Wanna hear it from you."

"S-so good, 's like you're made for me." Seokmin's delirious with pleasure, licking your neck and trailing open mouth kisses wherever he can. "Your perfect face and your perfect cunt, everything." His hips stutter inside you, god, you're so high, you're just making noises at this point.

When he bottoms out fully one more time, your orgasm hits you before you even comprehend it coming, and you cry out so loudly, it feels like your soul leaves your body. Your back arches off the bed, and you tremble limply in Seokmin's arms.

He moans, full bodied and low, only seconds after—shit, get so tight when you cum—when he cums in the condom, and your mind fogs with the brief thought of him pumping all that cum into your kitty and knocking you up. Maybe he'd eat you out afterward too, but the thought is making you horny for an experience you cannot physically handle right now.

"Oh my god," you croak. You blink dumbly up at your boyfriend, who now hovers over you, equally as spent and lovestruck. "Why the fuck didn't we do this sooner?"

"They say the best things are worth waiting for," he replies, laughing softly as he tucks a piece of sweaty hair behind your ear. He doesn't think he'll ever get used to how beautiful you are in these moments, dazed and radiant and covered in him. "That was okay, right? As good as you expected?"

"Better. And I have a pretty good imagination." Your lips feel like they're moving through quicksand and your eyelids heavy, but you know it's the post-orgasm haze you're wading through. And you don't even want to think about how your entire lower body will feel in approximately thirty minutes. "I think you fucked the spirit out of my body. It's a miracle I'm talking to you right now."

You hear a dull smack in your vicinity and a quiet whoops, and you hope it's not the tied-off condom missing the trash can (it is. He has terrible aim.)

But you let him sidle next to you in bed and swallow you up in his big, warm arms. "Miracle, huh? Guess I'm pretty lucky then."

"You're not supposed to be so sweet right now, you know. It's hurting my feelings," you jokingly protest, grinning when he kisses your nose.

"So you don't want me to order tacos? For after your nap?"

And of course both of those things sound perfect, because you forget Seokmin knows you inside and out (in more than one way now, you suppose), and he's spent more than one evening waking you up after you crash on his couch with a post-nap snack.

"Hmm.. But a nap is tempting...So are tacos." You settle into his warmth, enjoying the wonderful yet terrifying feeling of being so known. But you wouldn't have it any other way. "Reparations for you actually breaking my back."

"Wait. Did I actually?"

"No, god no," you laugh. "Just maybe my legs and also my pussy."

"Oh, good." He smiles wide, the kind where his whole face scrunches up in joy. "Then I have permission to carry you around for the next 24 hours?"

"I won't stop you," you say, mid-yawn. "Does Soonyoung know I'm over? Should we at least try to make it look like we didn't almost rail on his front door?"

"He probably already knows," Seokmin replies. "He told me to do the pillow thing when you were in the restaurant bathroom."

"Gross. But good. It worked." You shut your eyes tight. "God, I can't believe they all know about us now. I feel so seen. So perceived. Everyone will know I was bullshitting when I said there was no way I had feelings for you."

"Is that a bad thing? Do you wish we kept it a secret?"

You bury your face into the side of his body and wail, "No. That's the worst thing about it. That's how much I like you."

It's true—even you, self-proclaimed mystery, wants everyone in the world to know you're dating Lee Seokmin.

He kisses your forehead, more tenderly than you think you deserve.

"Take your nap. Wouldn't want you to wake up to cold nachos."

"Oh, you're ordering nachos too? I love you. I love you so fucking much."

He laughs because he knows you're probably delirious from how you got your world rocked less than half an hour ago, but you mean it. You mean it with your whole fucking chest, the one presently covered in spit and sweat and hickeys, and as he squeezes your hand one last time, you think about how Seokmin said he was the lucky one between the two of you.

No, there's no way. Not when you're lying in the arms of someone who looks like they've been carved out of marble, who just happens to know every single one of your phone numbers and your drive-thru orders and the answers to your online banking security questions.

"I know you're still awake," Seokmin chides softly, pressing the furrow between your brows (it's your thinking face).

"Fine. But I really do love you, okay?"

"Love you more."

You'd fight him on this one too, but you're too happy to say another word.

[megabuild]

what is aoyuer? is that an acronym for something?

okay so i meant to make a big doc explaining what aoyuer is like months ago but then i started working on different projects and put it on the back burner.. and then i got ill and now i don't have much time to work on stuff at all. but not having the doc sucks and means anything i ever say about it is very confusing. so i'm so sorry anon for using your ask as an excuse to just dump as much aoyuer lore as i can without reasonably spoiling it but also thanks for reminding me that i have a lot of followers here who have never heard of it. a sobering thought

tldr; aoyuer (as of yet untitled empires rewrite) (sorry bree) is my au rewrite of empires smp that aims to connect seasons 1 and 2 as well as after life, new life, and a bunch more inbetween, with a major focus on pixlriffs' story. it also ties up a lot of loose ends and is generally darker and more adult-aimed than the original series. technically that's all you need to know but here's the no spoilers plot rundown for those interested

so aoyuer is built up of ~7 arcs but only 4 of them are like Super important

arc 0: this is just afterlife smp and a ton of early worldbuilding, the crash of the great stags, etc; what's most important from this is that oli exists and has for thousands of years, probably

arc 1: empires season 1! set in the 1500s, the world is going through a sort of renaissance period with massive technological advancements. pixlriffs the copper king (cprk) is working a boring little library job and spending most of his time kicking himself and being mad he hasn't done anything with his life (he is only like 30 but the idea of feeling old and unaccomplished even when you're young is a major theme for arc 1). enter fwhip! who is his annoying ex-roommate ex-bestie ex-boyfriend from university that left him on pretty bad terms. he has a way more accomplished job and as part of that he has been allowed to head The Empires Project which is a major journey intended to further some distant colonies while also investigating the land they're on. the land has some weiiird properties which fwhip thinks could be harnessed to create functional immortality (which was the subject of pix's thesis). he wants pix to come with him and investigate. pix feels weird about it but agrees to come along and be the "emperor" for the desert colony while he does his research... and then things get fucked up and scary! its a high fantasy that switches between a metaphorical dissection of their horrid will they won't they relationship and both of their issues aaand a more Literal dissection of the land and things living in it. including people and animals. at times. and also involves pix accidentally awakening a curse for a billion million years which sets the rest of aoyuer in motion.

arc 1.5 is sort of Not important but iwlike it a lot. there's not much to be said for it without major spoilers but it's set a little bit after arc 1 and comprises of fwhip being very upset about how his stupid project fell apart and trying to write up an Official Report on why everything fell apart while also coming to terms with him being the worst guy to ever have lived or something. much of aoyuer is like thinly veiled metaphors for mental illness but this one is just about mental illness

arc 2 sends us years forward into season 2 in the 1800s and our protagonist is professor pixelle riffs, lorekeeper (lrkp) who leaves his job as an archaeology lecturer to go and study the ancient capital and The Machiiine. because the machine set up WAY too much cool stuff to just ignore. sculk infection/possession is a big part of this arc. however while he's doing all this he meets oli! remember him? who has crash landed in S2 (basically the same way he did in canon) and is now regularly butting heads with pix. they eventually become friends and then umm something more :3 a lot of this remains the same as canon except the sculk arc gets a proper conclusion and ties into the ghost stuff. it ends with oli's finale where he still fakes his death (the goblin stuff is going to be changed but it's up in the air right now) and pix is devastated but pretty certain there's something not quite right so he picks greggory up and goes off in search of his lame ass boyfriend.

arc 2.5 actually takes place mid arc 2 because it's the hermpires crossover, which is less different dimensions and more different times (hermitcraft is our present and the rift facilitates time travel). when pixelle the archaeologist steps through the rift it causes serious time fuckery and so he sort of gets. forcefully ejected from his body and becomes a ghost possessing pixl riffs of the hermitcraft recap (rcp) who stumbles out of the rift very tired and very confused! there's a lot of fun mistaken identity stuff between him and oli and this is generally the most like. comedic and casual of the arcs though it still has some sweet moments.

arc 3 is just new life smp. where pixelle finally ends up in nl, finds that his lame ass boyfriend is still alive, and has relationship drama with him Except on top of that the land that new life is set on has similar properties to the land from arc 1 (functional immortality except it has some different effects, aka. going through drastic physical changes every time you "die") and so pixelle starts investigating that and maybe finds out that his whole life and his ancestors and descendants lives might be caught up in a time loop because of the copper king. forever and ever. this hasn't got much for it because i was going to work from new life canon as a base but then both pix and oli stopped playing on it LMFOHALDH but anyway.

aaand arc 4! final arc! which is set in the present right after pixl (the recap one) returns home from the hermitpires crossover. except the weird ghost voice of his ancestor in his head.. isn't going away? or rather its been replaced by a different one who is sending him on The Heros Journey. along with zloy and lyarrah and modern fwhip. this is basically the long awaited Conclusion to the curse that the copper king put in place and a lot of bullshit happens that icant really explain but it ties up all the loose ends and is generally just pix consistently having the worst time. hes the only pix who goes through hell without bringing it upon himself like he was just born.

and um. that's aoyuer! obviously there's more for all the arcs and i am happy to answer Basically any questions even though i get a little nervous sharing stuff about it because im shy. But iwhope thag explains at least a bit for everyone. My dream is to write this all into various fanfics but that looks kinda unlikely rn but it means a lot to me and you can kinda safely assume if I'm ever talking about or drawing empires there's a 99% chance it's actually aoyuer because I forget canon exists .AOYUER WORLDWIDE

[natreads]

Ramblings about uni and the future

I'm trying to make a difficult decision. Since I've spent the last five years trying to break into the publishing industry and mostly failing (I'm freelance but can't get a full time job), I've been thinking very seriously about going back to uni to become a librarian instead. It's not really a career I've ever thought of, or wanted, but the same can be said for publishing. I decided I wanted to go that route when I already had a my bachelors degree. It felt like the "right" path, but I wasn't aware of how difficult it would be. The industry is so closed off, and I'm not very good at putting myself out there, so I've been struggling a lot. Not to mention people keep getting fired left and right so even if I do get in who knows how long that will last. I guess part of deciding to study something else, despite already having a masters degree and over six years of uni studies behind me, is that I feel like I need to essentially give up this dream, which would make the past five years feel like a waste even though I don't necessarily think they are. But I will have to give up the identity I have built around the industry. But I also feel like going another route won't mean I can't one day make it there too. But I also don't want to get another degree just to still be focusing on an industry that's this unattainable. I will have to focus on making it as a librarian instead and the idea of having to properly give up publishing makes me so sad, but I also know it will bring me relief once I actually do it. I need to study something where I will actually find work.

Another issue is that I really really REALLY don't want to study for another three years lmao. I talked to some people and there's a possibility that I COULD skip one semester due to previous studies, but I feel like it will be complicated and also not necessarily set in stone to manipulate the degree like that. I also got the tip to go take a masters instead which is two years, but here are the pros and cons to all of this:

Three year undergrad:

The school I did my BA at, so it's familiar

Since it's undergrad I'm not worried I will fail

Close to home (even if I move)

Unfortunately it's three years

It feels "silly" to get another BA when I could get an MA immediately instead

Two year masters program:

It's only two years

It will probably be hard

Could be done online, but I don't know if I have it in me to sit at home for two years again

It's in another city, but only takes an hour by train to get there

Unfortunately the train (pendeln) SUCKS and is super unreliable

And I would have to pay a bunch each time

But I like the idea of experiencing something new, since I both like the city (it's a college town) and don't think one hour is that bad

Another problem is that we'll be doing lots of group work so I might have to be there a lot which will be annoying

If I knew just HOW often I'd have to go I feel like it would be easier

I'm gonna be moving soonish to an apartment in the city here in Stockholm so I don't wanna move to Uppsala and do student housing, but my lease will only be one year so maybe I COULD during second year. I've never expeirenced student life like that before

Do I really wanna write another fucking masters thesis omg

I like the sound of two master degrees tho lmao

One semester will be dedicated to writing my thesis so I will mostly only have to commute for 1.5 years I guess, which makes the student housing in year two maybe unnessecary? But my lease will be up anyway soooo. In an ideal world I would be doing student housing my first year and then move into the other apartment after, but I can't do that and I don't wanna give up on a great opportunity

We'll be visiting libraries and whatnot and if it's in Uppsala (I kinda assume it is) I will have to figure out the public transit looool

Essentially, I think the undergrad one is safe but longer, while the MA is shorter but scarier. If I do the MA online I will be more comfortable, but also probably lowkey go crazy. Maybe if I knew if and how much I would be working at the bookstore after the summer I would pick the online version, since work would get me out of the house, but none of us know how needed I will be.

I know I need to change lanes, since I'm getting older and I need stability. Working in a library is the next best thing I can see myself doing after publishing (I kinda wanted to do marketing but I've realized it unfortunately goes against a lot of my morals and libraries are ethically the one and only place I stand 100% behind).

Idk if anyone has any insight or advice please lmk I'm so torn

[brostateexam]

"I'm definitely not thinking about death any more!"

I.

I was heading in to BART when I noticed that there was a moth in our car. For reasons I can't quite explain, I was consumed with the feeling that I had to get it out of the car to somewhere safe. My stop was going to put me (and maybe the moth, if I managed it) just three stories underground, though, which is not markedly better than being on a subway car. At least on the subway, there was a shot that it could get out in one of the open air stations and get to like some trees or something. I did nothing. I feel guilty about it.

II.

When I was making plum butter, I noticed there was a parakeet outside on my back steps. He was little and green, and he did not look thrilled to be out and about. I didn't have anything I could use to catch him, and even if I had, bringing a bird into a house with my cat who thinks killing birds ins her life's purpose (note: she has never actually done it, she just obviously really wants to) did not seem like a good option. I was trying to get him some bird seed and water when a loud noise caused him to fly off.

III.

I got a failed delivery notification for a package when I wasn't expecting anything to arrive and the pickup spot wasn't that far from my house, so I thought I'd just walk. It was in Eastmont, only 1.5 miles away. It was not, shall we say, the most pleasant walk, but it made me think about what it means when people say they hope neighborhoods "improve," because I found myself thinking that at times. What would it look like if the neighborhood improved for the people who live there now, instead of the neighborhood itself "improving" by accruing in value? I didn't have an answer for that, and I still don't, other than to say that I think sometimes people focus on neighborhood beautification projects because it's a lot easier to plant flowers in the medians than it is to solve systemic poverty.

IV.

I keep thinking about how my grandmother could have died of dehydration if the parking lot outside of her condo complex hadn't been due for repaving. I keep thinking about how if it won't be that, it will be something else, and it will be soon.

V.

Every time I see my mom these days, I am starting to see how she has aged. She is in her seventies, and it's not like she is experiencing severe cognitive decline or anything. She's just not quite as energetic or as strong or as sharp as she was ten years ago. This is scary to me. I'm not really ready for a world where I take care of my mom, but I know it's coming. My sister has two kids and she and her husband are like inches away from divorcing (have been for the last 3-4 years), so she's kind of got enough going on. I just have to convert my garage into a place my mom could live if she needed a little help, and be ready.

VI.

That stupid quiz said that what I needed was to break a leg, and I completely understood it. What I need, it says, is to lose control and find out that things will be okay if I don't have it. That isn't how this is going to work, though. No one else is going to do all the shit for me that I have to do just to tread water. I can feel bad about that, I guess, but I don't see how that helps anything, and the thing about treading water is if you stop, you drown.

VII.

When I'm doing innocuous, banal stuff, I can't stop thinking about how everything is going to end. Age, decay, entropy, heat and smoke are consuming my thoughts.

[doulayogimama]

We thought that our last flight (until we fly back to USA) was Brussels to Porto but we realized that taking a train / renting a car to get from Portugal into Southern Spain is a lot more time intensive/expensive than flying.

So! We are flying from Lisbon to Malaga on Monday 🙏🏽 We have booked 2 weeks there, which will be our longest stay in 1 place since we arrived in Europe on 12/12!

This apartment is in the best location🙌🏽 Kevin has a coworking space down the block and for Sky there is the best playground in the city just a couple blocks away. She desperately needs some routine and to see kids every day so I’m ecstatic to be in sunny Malaga where she can go to the playground / beach almost daily and it won’t be empty 😭

This is the one thing my mama heart feels shit about. This trip is for me and Kevin. Do I think instilling resiliency in kids from a young age is good for them? Yes, I honestly do. I also think exposing her to wildly different cultures from a young age is super important. BUT it’s hard to be parenting so differently from what I experienced, I do have some guilt.

My parents gave me routine, a big house, tutors, toys, nanny’s to get me whatever I wanted. But you know what I really wanted? To not be waiting up for both my parents to get home from work. To not spend every night as a young child with my nanny instead of my mom. And when I was older, I wished for parents that didn’t hand me everything on a silver platter. Because when you become an adult and realize no one else will do that for you, it’s a rude fucking awakening. When my mom was little, she was taken to every meeting / showing that her mom had after school because my Mimi was a single mother with very limited resources. As a kid, my mom dreamed of a comfortable house with a nanny to care for her while her mother went to work. So that’s what she gave us. I can’t resent her for that, that’s not what this is about. It’s about the fact that every matriarch before me thought she HAD TO sacrifice her happiness for her children’s. And that shit ends here, with me.

I wouldn’t change this trip, I don’t believe in being a martyr simply because I’m a mother. I’m sick and tired of perpetuating that story. So maybe this trip is selfish (a word that was used to describe me most of my childhood, but that I’ve taken back in adulthood to mean something else). Maybe she would be happier if we were in NY or Miami. But we are being loving parents who take care of our child WHILE working and adventuring. We are trying to stoke the fires of our souls while we raise our daughter, not putting off our dreams for some self promise of “when she’s out of our house we can live how we want to…”

Maybe she will resent this lifestyle (or more likely, she won’t remember it because she’s not even 3 yet 😅) but Kevin and I needed this. Our 1.5 years in FL was truly hell. The people… my G-d I swear I can’t even say their names without my stomach twisting.

I know that once we’re back in America, we will more than likely not leave the continent again until our second child is about the same age as Sky. I *think* I will be trying to get pregnant by the end of the year. So this trip is very much a gift to ourselves, the adults who have struggled some days to simply put one foot in front of the other. We just needed to remember that there is a big amazing world out there and we are allowed to be a part of it.

[spicesweet]

good morning! 𓆩♡𓆪

I was very hopeful of being able to run again today (I haven't logged in but I ran 1.5/3km yesterday and 1.2/3km the day before!) but the second I woke up and put my feet off the bed I knew today would have to be a recovery day. the backs of my thighs are sore af! but not in like a painful-can't-walk way, just in a congrats-girl-you're-actually-working-hard way.

I'll get some good yoga in today, and hopefully tomorrow I'll do a nice sprint to try and reach my goal. I'm not very hopeful, though. running half a kilometer all at once still seems like a huge challenge for me. but I'll try it, fuck it.

running is fun, and I love that I finally had the guts to start practicing it. coincidentally, as soon as I started running irl I started reading the running section of "Exercised" by Daniel Lieberman (yes, I'm still reading it! this book is gonna take me months to finish, stg) which inspired me immensely. I feel like I'm more prepared for it now that I know that my knees are actually safe as long as I keep a good form, and what "good form" actually means.

but my god, it makes me so hungry. I'm gonna need to buy more grapes. or get back to making smoothies.

in other news, my new phone arrives next week and I couldn't be more excited. I'll also renovate my entire f/w wardrobe next week, which is something I've been putting off for years now, but since I donated a huge amount of clothes last semester (and lost 22lbs lol), I need to get some new ones. and some lip balm.

what's everyone doing this weekend? I'm getting some Mexican food to make peace with it now that I know I'm avocado-intolerant, and if I'm lucky I'll put in a lot of hours into my little story.

love you, stay gorgeous, now let's have some coffee.

xoxo, Gigi. ๋࣭ ⭑⚝

[adragonsfriend]

Accidental Star Wars Fungi Headcanon???

Ok so i'm doing Big Edits for Yoda's chapter of This Story Can Kill You, and it's set in the room of a thousand fountains, aka the giant garden on a city planet, so I got to writing about plants.

I fucking love writing about plants--like so much, you don't even know--it's addictive, they should put a warning on it idk--

Obsessions aside, I started talking about grass and moss and clover and then I was like fungi are here too. So then I was like mycelium and symbiosis obviously. And then I just wrote a line all casual, as one does,

Their roots are tended by fungi gardeners in a relationship half as old as the Force itself.

Based on the vague idea of the Force coming from life. But then I was like i need to fact check that to be satisfied with it, because I am not an evolutionary biologist but I am a nerd.

and like according to wikipedia numbers,,, I was wrong,,,but not that wrong:

Life started on earth ~3.7 bya (billion years ago), and fungi emerged 1.2-1.5 bya o, and the first plants about 0.8-1.0 bya. The first land plants and land fungi, as well as this specific symbiotic relationship (probably) evolved out about ~0.5 bya. That's about a seventh as old as life, not a half, but it's still a significant fraction.

Anyway the head canon part of this comes from the fact that “half as old” sounds better than “one seventh as old,” and obviously none of these numbers are technically relevant to SW anyway. Fungi themselves are about half as old as life itself, so let's say water plants and water fungi had a similar relationship to their land versions on whatever planet first developed life in the SW universe. Then the relationship would be about a third as old as life going by a proportionate time line, and the title of the chapter is literally "A Poet at his Work," so Yoda can be afforded a bit of poetic license and say half. He's cool like that.

How does Yoda know about how old the fungi are? The Force told him obv. He couldn't give any answers about it that would make a biologist happy he just knows the Force things fungi are neat and likes to share facts about them. He also probably wouldn't give those answers if he could. He would say something cheating and the fungi prefering to be mysterious anyway.

Side note: Also in the process of these edits I have learned that giant sequoias (eg the real big tall trees it takes like 10+ people to hug) don't have tap roots??? (tap roots are the biggest root a lot of trees have and they typically grow like straight down looking for water, unlike other roots that are much closer to the surface) Apparently their stability is achieved with super wide but shallow root net works instead? I mean I've been to a giant sequoia forest and there sure are a lot of roots to trip on but that's still insane to me.

Sources (all wikipedia)

plants

fungi

specific fungi-plant relationship: mycorrhiza

land plants & land fungi emerge

Anyway is there a fungus side of tumblr? i feel they should explain everything I'm getting wrong here

i'm gonna go try and find some fungus people brb

Edit: (15 min later) ok I've harassed (politely asked) four different fungus people so we (just me) are really just waiting to see if I was funny enough in their asks to be noticed

[doublegoblin]

A year and some change in retrospective

Okay so technically It’s like a year and 2 months and like a day. While I made the account and started posting things in November of 2022 I made my intro post on the 23rd of Jan last year so that’s when I’m going to count myself as having officially joined lol. I got thinking about this on my way into work today and I got a little reflective. I’m going to be kind of rambling (what else is new lol) but it dawned on me that, damn dude, a whole year is still like 300+ days and life can go wild directions. I also figured this may be nice for the newer people who have started to follow me (hello and thank you btw). Things won’t necessarily be in chronological order, I mean they might, but, I’m also liable to jump around.

So let’s start with some backstory, all good stories start with backstory yeah?

Me and my -at the time- bf(we’re still together lol just fiance now) were on our way to my aunt's wedding…running late actually because I had the day wrong and blah blah blah. To kill time on the 3hr car ride I started to spit ball this idea for a story I had brewing, that would then become Rituals and Red Tape. I was writing it for myself for a while as a way to deal with being let go from my last job. Well I then had the silly idea to maybe share this with people, so then we get to November and I make a profile and start posting.

That’s right, I started my path on here to be someone putting out original works of writing. I mean, if you go to my profile and check out the pinned post you’d know this but let’s be real, nobody really does that lol. And as those of you putting out original stuff also know, it can be pretty quiet at first. I had in my mind that I was just going to have my stuff on my blog, maybe reblog writing stuff only; that uh…didn’t last long. I’ve met some pretty cool people on here, even if we never really talk I’m happy to see your stuff cross my dash. It was the whole song and dance of you follow me and I follow you, support network stuff. Took part in tag games, an OC fighting tourney thing, and just some other fun things. All the while I’m posting little one-offs, a new WIP here and there…that I eventually just kinda stop working on in favor of my first child. 

I make a Wattpad and start posting what could be considered the 1.5 draft of the story. Things are fun, quiet, but fun

I start to engage in more fandom related things, because why not?

Then something happens, something that I didn’t think would take me in the direction I am going now.

I buy a $30 mic.

Voice acting and acting in general were always a passion of mine as a kid, and with a new stable job and comfy living I thought it was time to revisit some old joy. What was even better is that an artist I was following had a “casting call” for an animation she was working on. So with my little microphone and audacity(the program lol) I do the thing that changed my blog, I tried out…and I got a little part! I’ve never really been one to yearn for the spotlight but I took a chance and it worked out, and I was hooked after that.

So I started to use that mic more and more. First recording a short story of my own, recording a short story by a pal, then…well I guess you can call it doing some dub work.

Now in the past I had people follow me just out of the blue, but, with the first Five Pebbles recording it started to happen more and more. And those posts, well, they were getting some attention. Not a lot mind you, but like, more than the original works. Now I don’t say this with anger or bitterness, it’s just how stuff like this works out. So with what I thought was going to be a one-off thing, I knew I wanted to keep doing it. Yes the notoriety was fun, but more so, I was making something that was bringing people joy. So I recorded more, and more people saw it and liked it, reblogged it too.

Then I had that funny little idea. Something new to me that scratches a few itches at once. If you’ve followed me for THIS you know, the Kel Logs. Not only was I playing a game that I really enjoy(btw if you haven’t you should go play the game it is fun and but I won’t bog this down with info dumping), but I was doing some original writing and voice acting. It was the perfect storm.

Now I know I’m not the most well known person out there and this little fan fiction project isn’t like super famous, which I’m very okay with lol, but like the comments and stuff show I was having an impact on people in a small way. And it was having an effect on me, I was becoming more comfortable with my voice. Not going to sour the mood too much but I’ve struggled with voice dysphoria for a while and the joy I am able to bring people is so important to me, which I know sounds selfish.

So now here we are in the present, I know I’ve missed some stuff and simplified others, with people following me for fandom things and all that jazz. I thank every single one of you. Whenever my stuff get reblogged I do try my best to say something in the comments to those who say things in tags lol, sometimes tumblr won’t let me @ you but know I try. You all have no idea how much it means that I can bring joy to you and I don’t feel I can pay you all back other than to keep doing what I’m doing.

I haven’t worked on my original stuff in a while but I don’t think I’ll be tossing it to the side. In fact I know I won’t. I have a story I want to tell and it will be. So if you have any interest, please check it out and let me know what you all think. I want to always improve but I can’t know where to patch things up if I don’t hear about a leak lol. I’m getting super rambly so I’m gonna stop this here.

1 year later and I’ve gone from solely original writing to a strange hybrid of that and fandom stuff, and I couldn’t be happier with where I am.

So once again, thank you all so much for liking what I do and I hope to keep bringing you things to make you feel emotions.

[stygiusfic]

hi styg !! i'm really curious about 14 and 15 for those end-of-year writer asks if you feel like talking about it 💖 !!

hi friend!! <333 thank you for the ask!!

14. a fic you didn't expect to write

I haven't posted this yet, but the question doesn't say it has to be posted, so. Inspired by my re-read of The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells this summer, I've written 40k words (and counting) of a Critical Role C2 fanfic trapping one of my favorite characters of the campaign, Essek, on the island that steals people's memories away and makes them slaves to the false god in its volcano. (Currently titled The Island of New Beginnings; I have a CR sideblog @bug4bread-sideblog which is where I'll share when it's done.)

It's not Hades, which is all I've posted in the past couple of years, and it doesn't mean my Hades days are over, but man, I'm having a blast playing in this new sandbox. It's also an experiment: I've only mentioned it to a few friends, and plan to start posting only after I finish. I want to see if multi-chapter is easier for me that way. So, unexpected but good!

15. something you learned this year

Feels like I learned a lot! Or gained more confidence in my process; probably a mix of both. (Under a cut because it got long!)

Overall, in the long long years I've been writing, I've written mostly short stories or one-shots, and I've always struggled the most with finishing the initial draft. There's always that perfectionist urge in me that wants to get all the themes and plot elements and character arcs in the right arrangement from the get-go, and if I'm feeling dissatisfied with my direction it's hard to stay motivated.

This year, maybe because I've recently wrangled with longer works, I feel like I'm building some endurance in that regard! You can get lucky with a one-shot and push it out in a day, and get a first draft that’s near perfect, but that’s just not possible with multichapter, for me, and I’ve finally started to accept that.

It's still hard to let go of the urge to polish right away, but I feel like I understand now more deeply that my process relies on multiple passes to get where I want to go. Especially for 20k+ stories, this is what I'm learning to accept as the process:

0.5 — Outline: In-depth outline of the whole story with its ups and downs, with a list of scenes too, and I'll usually outline each scene before I write it. (Who's in the scene? What do they want? How are the things they want out of the scene opposed?). The overall outline will be thin in the second half because I still don't know enough about my story, I'll find out what I'm actually getting at when I start writing it; I’ve learned that This is fine.

1. — First draft: Sometimes inspiration works miracles but waiting for a miracle is not a process. I really feel like this year I got a step closer to accepting that my first draft can and should be rough. It's a draft. It's sinking in that, when I look at my artist friends' progress videos, of course I don't expect them to make a perfect painting without sketching basic shapes first, so why do I keep expecting the writing equivalent of that from myself?

1.5 — Heart Notes list: This has been the game changer in 2022. It's a list of things to fix in a later draft, and/or think about on my next walk. When I'm drafting and dissatisfied with something (why would this character do this? why does this pacing fall flat? etc) or introducing some new element halfway through that I will need to rewrite earlier scenes to set up, I just put it on this list. And I don't think about it anymore for now. I used to compile these notes after the first draft was done, but those issues weigh on me enough that they would often discourage me and keep me from finishing the first draft at all. The list lets me mentally set down the weight of that problem, knowing I will address it later, so I can keep drafting now.

2. — Second draft: My beloved. Here is where I will do the larger rewrites based on my heart notes and rearrange stuff how I need it to be and just generally feel terribly relieved the first draft is behind me.

3. — Final draft: Just tweak some sentence-level stuff to make it read better and clearer, and we're done. (This is what I have always foolishly hoped the second draft would be, which meant I needed the first draft to be close to perfect already... and that’s how I got stuck.)

I still have a long way to go in terms of learning to let the first draft suck as much as it needs to, but I've been feeling a lot more secure in the idea that sucking is part of the process. I struggled a lot with writing in the first half of 2022. It's been getting better, and I think giving myself more leeway to suck at first and then seeing it work out in the end has helped a lot.

I hope 2023 is a good writing year for you (and in general too)!!

[fleurcareil]

Leaving Canada

After finishing the road trip, the last 2 weeks of September were a whirlwind of activities to sort out things and say goodbye one more time before leaving the country. Although I may have benefited from staying a bit longer, having been on the road for so long made me ready to close off this phase and look forward to the next one, going back home to Europe! 🤩

First priority was to clean everything that I had been traveling with (with thanks to lots of space and a garden hose😁) and then figure out what to put into storage and what to bring as luggage. Initially my intent had been to travel straight from France to Chile, however due to exorbitant one-way air fares, I ended up booking a return ticket back to TO for mid-January.... not sure how this is all going to work out but for now it means that I'm only travelling with one suitcase instead of the 3 that I had already pre-packed. Easier to carry but harder to fit my clothes! 😅

Second key item was to get my car sold, so I got the car deep cleaned over lunch with Tara... something I've never done but should really have given myself as a gift much earlier! 😄 I thought the guy had done a great job at making my car look brand-new again, but he actually apologized to me as he hadn't managed to remove all bug residue from the grill nor the grit of the endless unpaved roads from the tires...the downfall of such an extensive road trip!

That afternoon, 3 accidents on the QEW highway meant that traffic was jammed for miles around, so I tried to wait it out by visiting the first 2 car dealers to get a sense of their offer... suddenly everything seemed wrong with my fab drive, as it needed new tires, new brakes, a chip in the window etc etc... 😯😪 I recognize the sales tactics for what they were but they still pulled me down, so by the time I got back home after taking 1.5 hours over a 20min drive, I was shaken & thoroughly fed up!

Next day, I toured a few more dealers who all basically said the same and then just cut my losses to get it over with (I must be the worst negotiator on earth! 🤣) ... I absolutely have had an amazing time driving my Rogue and I still loved everything about it, but it was time to say goodbye and move on.

Being a bit emotional after signing the papers, I drove by my old house in Burlington (where the new tenants are neglecting the pretty roses I had planted 😣) and then sat on my favourite bench in Paletta Park overlooking Lake Ontario. A mere 10 minutes' walk from where I used to live, I would often come here over my lunch break or after work, a great spot to relax! 😊

Next day, after having handed in the car & safely deposited the cheque at the bank, I was happy to go over to Priyanka & Arnie for a traditional Hungarian dish and meet again with their lovely parents. I first met Priyanka's parents at our MBA graduation over 10 years ago and we've been in touch ever since, having shared many dinners (including with my parents and in Delhi 🤗), theater plays, a powwow and ofcourse the wedding in India! 😍😍

On Friday, I spent hoouuuurs on the internet and phone to arrange anything from bank accounts & medical insurance to booking flights for my travels in Europe. Felt good to clean house and try to close as many things as possible before leaving. In the evening, we had delicious pizza & craft beer in the "Shed" in downtown Dundas.

That Saturday, it was fun times at the Ancaster Fall Fair with Arpita, Navneet and his cousin Nithia. 🤩 I had never been to a farm fair, which had everything from a hot sauce contest, cow & chicken displays to nitro-chilled snacks and prizes for the prettiest tomatoes, hay bales and funny-looking veggies! 😂 Quite an experience and a great afternoon!

On Sunday, I went with Heather for a hike in nearby Dundas Valley conservation area, my favourite forest west of the GTA. I've been here so often that I know most trails by heart but this time we walked in from a residential area on the side so that the forest still felt new. 😀

I spent the second week in Toronto where I lived for 11 years - my personal record of living that long in one city! 😊 - and it felt really good to roam the streets (albeit only for a short period of time before the craziness got to me 😫). For four days I crammed in as many friends as I could see, starting with a great backyard dinner with my old team. Having 9 different cultural backgrounds being represented leads to ever-interesting diverse conversations! 😍

On Tuesday, I had cozy lunch and dinner with my two good friends Kathryn and Lynne, both a bit senior to me hence always providing me with valuable insights that help me put things in a different perspective. 🥰 They're both great examples of how we can continue to have fulfilling lives for many years to come! 😘

Then on Wednesday, a lunch walk with Dana through my old 'hood and the Riverdale Farm, followed by relaxing tea with Natasha, Lance and their mother who I've also known since coming to Toronto and by whom I spent a memorable Christmas in Trinidad & Tobago. 🤩 In the evening, the drinks were tasty as usual when meeting with a loosely connected 😅 but somehow gelling group of Real Estate friends... always a good time!

On my last day in Toronto, I caught up with Harvey over Indian Roti and then had a few lovely hours at the new Love Park at the harbourfront. My final date was with my camping-sailing-drinking group of friends 😎 at the Queen Mother Café, a downtown thai restaurant where I used to go often in the first years. We're all a bit wiser (?!? 😂) then when we first met years ago but the laughs are still there!

Tired & having a terrible cold but feeling blessed with all those friendships, I made my way back to Dundas, where I was grateful to spend the last day with Arpita and Navneet, working a bit in the garden and playing the cool card game Dominion at night.

On the 30th September, they dropped me off to the airport, ready to fly home! 💖💖💖

[queenharumiura]

Meet the mun. Basics

NAME:  Neo

PRONOUNS:  She/her

PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION: Discord > Asks > Replies on posts = Tumblr IM

SINGLE / TAKEN: Taken

— three facts

I have an excel document where I keep track of all art that I've purchased/commissioned since 2021 because that's when my huge craze for collecting art from artists I like started. I did this to really put into perspective how bad my 'nochillitis' gets. I've--- spent a lot on dA artists lol. (don't get me started on gacha games)

If anyone knows Prince of Tennis, I have all of the 'Valentine Day Kiss' songs. Wouldn't you know that they keep releasing a new one every year? I collect them!

I don't know how accurate it is because I was doing it in my car and people were walking around so I got nervous but, according to singingcarrots, My lowest singing note is a F#3 and my highest is a D6.

— experience

I believe I've been rp'ing for about 16-17 years? I think only 7 years on tumblr.

— sub-genres

Tbh I don't understand what this means. KHR has a bit of crack humor to it, which appeals to my troll heart. It's easy to do wholesome fluffy things with Haru as well as it is to do angst. IDK if that answers the question.

— plots vs memes

Mmm... so I'm fine with winging threads and seeing where things go, but plotting things out usually does retain attention for both sides. Memes are fun, even if I tend to write them as if they are standalone things. Some memes are fine to be continued- but the drabble ones usually aren't. I do always make sure to specify that somewhere, either in tags or in the response itself.

If I had to say, I have a stronger preference to plots since it's easier to cater things to your muse. Memes are something I throw onto the dash when I have the time or in the mood for it. I don't have the best relationship with the inbox, so I personally don't have a good association with memes in general.

— long or short replies

Depends on the definition. I'm honestly not very good with sentence threads, and I will often slowly veer into paragraph territory. I tried sentence threads before, but that's when I was hit with 2 word responses- which is why it's in my rules to never give me 2 word replies. It became a peeve of mine.

The shortest I can go is probably a paragraph. The longest... I think to date may have been something between 1.5-2k words? I write whatever feels right for me in the moment, and I honestly don't mind however much or little my partner wants to write.

I can however be asked to keep my replies within a certain length (ie 3 paragraphs) and i'll adhere to that. 8)

— best time to write

Any time i'm not distracted with youtube/discord I tend to be more active in the afternoon to late evening hours. As for chatting, I tend to prefer hours 10am-4pm because it feels like it's still early in the day that I can afford to be distracted with conversations. After that, I do try to stay away from discord if I can so I can focus on writing.

If I have nothing to work on, then any hour of the day i'm awake is a good time to talk.

Stole from: @whiskeysmulti

Tagging: I don't tag, but I can if you'd like me to.

[skippyv20]

Yacht chef here. I specialize in easy, quick and fancy. 1. Read Harold McGee. Understanding a few basic scientific principles will improve your cooking dramatically. 2. Turn down the heat on the stovetop when cooking everything but meat. Then turn it waaay up. 3. Don't forget to season with an acid (i.e. citrus or vinegar) just like you would with salt. 4. For great mash potatoes, add xanthan gum to your melted butter and cream for a stable hydrocolloid before adding it to your potatoes. You can add a lot more flavor (butter) without it separating. 5. Xanthan gum works wonders in most homemade salad dressings too. So many uses in a kitchen. 6. Use a digital thermometer with an oven safe probe. Use it for everything. Temperature is really important in everything you do. Even things like bread and pastries. 7. Use the big sheets of parchment paper on all your pans and kitchen surfaces. It makes cleaning up a lot easier. You can get boxes of 3000 sheets for like 40 bucks and it will last you a year. S**t is magic. 8. Sharpen your knives. A sharp knife is not only safer but will change the way you cook. A dull, s***ty knife will slow you down by half during prep. 9. Don't 'eyeball' amounts and don't cook by time. Cook by weight and temperature. Use a scale. Your pastries and will improve dramatically. 10. Don't keep eggs in the fridge. 11. Always put a wet rag under your cutting board to keep it from moving. 12. Learn how to blanch vegetables. The first time you see the difference between blanched asparagus and regular asparagus it will blow your mind. 13. Put lemons and limes in the microwave for ten seconds before you juice them. Much easier to juice. 14. Immersion blenders are indispensable. 15. Fish cooks surprisingly well from frozen. Try it, you'll be amazed at how you can develop great flavors on the outside without overcooking the interior. Just don't try it on something over about 1.5" thick. 16. Dried beans taste better, are way cheaper than canned beans and are a lot easier to portion. You might be surprised by how much better they taste. Just soak them overnight. 17. If you have a stand mixer, get the food grinder. Freshly ground meat cooks more evenly, tastes better and is easier to work with. 18. Make your bread awesome by increasing it's gluten content. Buy gluten at the store and add a tablespoon per 3 cups of regular flour. 19. Cut evenly to cook evenly. 20. Use fresh herbs but don't buy them in the package if you can. They often sell the plant in a plastic pot in supermarkets and the price is usually about the same for the same amount. The upside is you don't have to worry about your herbs spoiling. 21. Put an egg yolk, a little salt, a touch of lemon juice and a teaspoon of mustard in a glass bowl. Beat the s**t out of it with a whisk for about thirty seconds. Then slowly add (I mean drop by drop at first) a cup of oil while beating the s**t out of it (wrap a towel in a circle and use it as a base for your bowl if you don't want to hold it). As it thickens, keep adding oil in a very slow stream. It will slowly form mayonnaise and it if it's your first time tasting real mayo you might want to give yourself time to forget the mayo lie that you've been living. As you get better, this will only take a few minutes to make a bunch of mayo. For me, this is kitchen wizardry. 22. If you're doing a bunch of cooking (especially with flour) it takes about twenty seconds to plastic wrap your prep counter. It saves about 10 minutes of cleaning. 23. MSG is not bad for you. Use it sparingly and it can really improve your food. Try it with soups first and experiment with it in other things. It's not for everything but can mean the difference between good and great. 24. Salt your eggs before you cook them. They are more tender.

https://www.boredpanda.com/best-lazy-cooking-cheats/

[cassolotl]

Testosterone, Day 1,544

That’s 4.2 years, somehow?? 1.5 pumps of Tostran per day, which is 15mg testosterone, a pretty low dosage - I’m typically just under the masculine range and way above the feminine range.

I have two events to report today!

Event the first

This evening I was just bumbling around on the internet and poking my own chin in a kind of stimmy way, and found a weird sensation like something was stuck to my face, couldn’t work out what it was, went to look in the mirror but couldn’t see anything, all very odd. After a second or two of trying to grab it to remove it, I realised that it was just... a hair. :D Growing out of my face! So there you have it, folks - low dose T, does eventually cause at least one proper beard hair on the chin, like a little palm tree all alone on a desert island.

Event the second

I interviewed some candidates to be PAs (the disability kind, not the office kind) recently. In the job description I put that I’m nonbinary, and I also say in a sort of “desirable characteristics” bullet point list that candidates would ideally be familiar with LGBTQ+ issues, and use of gender-neutral pronouns in particular.

The first woman I interviewed was extremely oblivious. I introduced myself as being nonbinary and autistic and ADHD and having EDS, and asked if she wanted clarification of any of the terms, and she conspicuously didn’t ask more about the nonbinary part. The first question was “what are your pronouns?” and she was very confused, so we clarified like “some people want to be called ‘he’, some people want to be called ‘she’, some people (like me) are ‘they’...” and she said, “oh, I see! Miss!” And I had to say, “no, that’s your title, we mean pronouns, like he, she or they?”

So that was a good start??? And then later on there’s a question to test whether people can fluently use gender-neutral pronouns, which trips a lot of people up. It goes, “talk to us about a nonbinary person you know who prefers they/them pronouns.” (If they don’t know any, we invite them to talk about a nonbinary celebrity, or make someone up.) It’s not to find out your attitude to nonbinary people, it’s literally just to check if you can get my pronouns right. This woman entirely failed to refer to any nonbinary people, and told us about how she’s very accepting of diversity and has worked with a lot of gay designers. :D Amazing.

Anyway this was just some of the weird stuff from the interview, she also compared herself to Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, it was a time. But the whole point of me telling you this story is, she talked to my PA instead of me for a lot of the interview (also got a very low grade in that regard) and every time she referred to me in the third person she called me “he/him��. This is the latest of several incidences of people guessing that I’m a “he”, which is very novel compared to the first 35 years of my life.

(The good news is, the other two candidates I interviewed automatically aced that pronoun question - one was a they/them nonbinary person, and one was a she/they person.)

In summary

My flavour of being nonbinary is, I don’t want people to think I’m a man or a woman. I want to be gender teflon. But because society is a bit clueless, the best I can hope for much of the time is for people to guess “man” and “woman” about half of the time each.

I’d say this is pretty much the case right now, and has been for maybe about a year? When people gender me it is a little bit uncomfortable, but as soon as someone genders me in the other direction I feel better again. Like, oh thank goodness, I’ve not accidentally gone Full Dude. Or, phew, maybe testosterone does work after all. :D

My voice has finished doing whatever it’s going to do, and speech and language therapy has helped a lot. My face is a bit fuzzy, I’d guess I have to shave it maybe every 2-4 weeks? (My facial hair is very fair so far, I am not blessed with abundant melanin in general so it makes sense.) My body fat distribution is more on the masc side, I’ve put on 2 kg since I started and it has stopped increasing now, and it’s mostly on my belly, which I much prefer to the more feminine shape.

It’s very funny seeing how relative strangers interpret me and Avery as a duo. My lovely accepting nextdoor neighbour seems to think me and Avery are a straight couple, because he refers to me in feminine ways and then makes friendly jokes with Avery about being a bloke in a straight relationship, and at the same time he is definitely aware that something super queer is going on, so that’s a mystery, but it’s too hard to explain it to him and I don’t really mind ‘cos he clearly means well and is very sweet, so that’s fine!

In other news

I’m probably going to have a metoidioplasty surgery (bottom surgery) sometime in the next few months on the NHS?? Scary! But the outcome I want is relatively simple, not that much of a change, and will require only one surgery. I’m also due to have another chest revision surgery sometime soonish, because one side is still a little bit uneven, and it was going to happen years ago but then it had to be put on hold due to lack of support. Everything is back on now, and surgeries are once again like buses...!

In “blimey”

I worked out I was nonbinary when I was 24, so that’d be like 12 years ago, WHAAAAAAAAAT

[sunken-standard]

Sunken's Half-assed Lacto-fermented Radish Kraut-chi Tutorial (or, how to use salt and time to make radishes edible and not poison yourself)

Start with some radishes, whatever you have—Cherry Belles, Sparklers, French Breakfast, White Icicle, Daikon, etc.  These are 5.5lbs of Korean Diakon (“Alpine Gold” hybrid) from my garden.  You can peel them or not; I don't peel what I grow or buy from local farms, but I do peel things from the grocery store. 

Slice them however you want.  Coins, matchsticks, quarters (for smaller radishes), cubes, it's all up to you.  Different sizes and shapes give different textures and have different fermentation times.  Throw them in a bowl and salt to taste.  They should be pleasantly salty; not so much that it burns your mouth, but not too lightly either.  The sweet spot for me is a little less salty than the average potato chip.

Now you can add your other stuff, if you want.  Plain old brined and fermented radishes are yum on their own.  I want more of my half-assed kimchi though, so I'm using red cabbage (any will do, I had the red on hand), carrots, sweet onions (from a local farm; green onions work too), ginger, garlic, an apple (yes that was a Red Delicious, and no I didn't use it after all because it was rotten inside, but I did use a Honeycrisp instead), and Gochugaru (this stuff is the mild kind). I only used about half of the ginger and garlic pictured and added more carrot, but you get the idea.  If you're using cabbage, keep a few of the (clean, nice-looking) outer leaves for later.  You can shred the rest or cut it into squares to be a little closer to real kimchi.

Chop everything up, mixing and tasting as you go--before and after adding more salt.  After it's all chopped and mixed and salted and happy, let it sit (covered to keep beasties out) for a half hour to two hours (or even longer, you won't ruin it if you accidentally fall asleep, eh heh).

(I go relatively light on the gochugaru because I’m a wuss)

Make sure you have enough jars or whatever you're going to use for the fermentation.  I thought two half-gallons would be enough, but I was wrong.  Washing with soap and water is enough, they don't need to be boiled or otherwise sanitized.

Pack the vegetables into the jar, trying the squish out the air spaces as you go.  It's going to create a lot of its own brine, and there will be liquid left in the bottom of the mixing bowl (pour that in the jar).  The juice probably won't cover the vegetables, so you can top it off with plain brine made at a ratio of 1.5 tsp to 1c water, which should be boiled and cooled if you have city water (to get rid of the chlorine) but doesn't have to be if using well or bottled water.  Squish it down again after adding the brine, or use a chopstick to poke around and get the air bubbles out.

If you saved a cabbage leaf, now's the time to mash it into the jar to cover all the vegetables and keep them under the brine.  It's not necessary, it just keeps stuff neater.  Some people use plastic wrap, but I don't like that myself If I don't have a leaf I just fill the jar about ¾ and cover it with more brine.  Weight it down with something (I have fancy glass fermentation weights for jars, but a plastic bag of salt or beans or brine works fine).  

Put the lid on the jar loosely (or if you're using something like a crock, cover with a heavy cloth and secure with string or a rubber band), label and date it, and keep it somewhere that doesn't get too hot or too cold, ideally out of direct sunlight.  Oh, and put it on a plate or a tray or something, leakage is normal, even if you think you haven't overfilled the jars (ask me how I know -_-).  You'll see little bubbles starting about 24 hours later—this is good and means it's cookin'.  

(These are dill pickles I started ~48h earlier)

Burp the jars daily and start tasting after about 3 days.  When it's sour and the vegetables are a little soft (it'll smell funky, kind of like farts and warm onions, but it's fine), it's ready to go in the fridge.  It'll keep for months, maybe even years; just remember to check it because it does keep fermenting, just at a much slower rate.

So yeah, that's it.  Sounds like a lot, but it's so, so easy.  This is a jar I did like a month ago and I've already eaten about 1/3 of it: